Alemayehu Fentaw Weldemariam
Alemayehu Fentaw Weldemariam is a PhD Candidate in Law and Democracy at Indiana University Maurer School of Law’s Center for Constitutional Democracy, specializing in constitutional law, constitutional theory, constitutional design, and political theory. He is an Adjunct Professor of Law at Maurer, where he teaches Fundamentals of U.S. Constitutional Law in the LL.M. and M.C.L. programs, and a Lecturer in Law at Mekelle University School of Law. He also serves on the editorial boards of Africa Today, Orbis Africa, and the IACL-AIDC Blog.
His dissertation develops a normative theory of constitutional precommitment in deeply divided societies, using Ethiopia’s constitutional experience to advance broader claims about constitution-making, constituent authority, constitutional legitimacy, entrenchment, amendment, and constitutional change. It argues that constitutional commitments should be calibrated to the breadth, quality, and durability of the constituent agreement from which they emerge, bridging constitutional theory, comparative constitutional law, and the practical challenges of post-conflict constitution-making. His work draws on the history of political and constitutional thought, from Plato and Publius to Bickel, Ackerman, Elster, and Horowitz.
He previously served as National Peace Adviser to Ethiopia’s Ministry of Federal Affairs and has been affiliated with the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project at the University of Gothenburg. He holds degrees from Addis Ababa University, the European University Center for Peace Studies, and George Mason University.
Hilary Egheose Okoeguale
Dr. Hilary Egheose Okoeguale is a Mandela Washington Fellow and an Ostrom Fellow. Although he earned his PhD from the University of Benin, he is in the fourth year of his second doctoral program at the Maurer School of Law, Indiana University. At Maurer, he has taught Academic Legal Writing: Dissertation Fundamentals, served as Graduate Colloquium Coordinator, and serves as Editor of the Maurer Global Forum Law Review series. Before joining Maurer, Dr. Okoeguale served as an Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Law Clinic at Afe Babalola University, where he taught a range of courses in public law and supervised PhD dissertations. Dr. Okoeguale has extensive experience in strategic advocacy. His interventions in the criminal justice system in Nigeria included providing free legal representation in court for indigent detainees and co-drafting the extant Administration of Criminal Justice Law of Ondo State, Nigeria. He also served as a visiting faculty member at the Staley School of Leadership Studies at Kansas State University to facilitate interactive sessions with the Mandela Washington Fellows.
His research interests include institutional analysis, constitutional design, and democratic consolidation.
Lungile Masuku
Lungile is from Zimbabwe and is currently a PhD Fellow at IU Maurer School of Law and the Center for Constitutional Democracy. A career of more than 16 years of experience in government service in Zimbabwe under the Ministry of Justice. Served as a Chief Law Officer for law reform in the Law Development Commission. As a law reformer, I was involved in research and proposing law reform (revision and new laws). Was a member of an Inter-Ministerial Task Force for coordination of the constitutional alignment process in Zimbabwe. I also served as a Principal Law Officer at the Legal Aid Directorate for seven years, providing legal services such as litigation to indigent members of society. I hold an LLM in Democratic Governance and Rule of Law from Ohio Northern University, where I graduated with an Outstanding International LLM Student Award and an Excellence for the Future Award. Also have a Bachelor of Laws (Honors) degree from the University of Zimbabwe. Areas of research interest include constitutional design, women's participation and representation in politics, and gender quotas.
Jisha Sarkar
Jisha Sarkar is a South Asian scholar in the first year of her PhD program in Law and Democracy and holds an integrated Bachelor of Arts - Bachelor of Laws (B.A. LL.B.) from the Department of Law, University of Calcutta. She served as the Assistant Director of the Center for Constitutional Democracy at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law from 2024-2026. Her work focuses on coordinating international constitutional reform initiatives and academic collaborations with partners in Burma, Ukraine, Jordan, and Kazakhstan. She has participated in conferences and workshops on constitutional reconstruction and democratic transitions in Ukraine, Thailand, and Kazakhstan. She has also taught International Law at Indiana University's Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, where she developed case-based learning and moot court simulations.
Prior to joining Indiana University, she was a judicial intern with the High Courts of Calcutta and Meghalaya. She also worked extensively with the Human Rights Law Network on strategic public interest litigation. Her research interests lie in constitutional design in conflict-prone and post-conflict societies, with a particular focus on constitution-making, democratic transitions, institutional resilience, and the role of constitutional law in peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction Eastern Europe, Central Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.
Ahmed Elbasyouny
Ahmed Elbasyouny is a PhD Candidate in the Law and Democracy Program at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law. He has taught international law and constitutional design in the Department of International Studies at Indiana University and, as a recipient of the Future Faculty Teaching Fellowship, will teach several law courses at Purdue University Fort Wayne during the 2026–2027 academic year.
Ahmed holds an LL.M. in Comparative Constitutional Law and a B.A. in Political Science. Alongside his academic work, he has interned, worked, and consulted with the U.S. Senate, the Egyptian Parliament, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Laos.
Ami Acary
Ami Acary earned her LL.B degree (passed with honors) and LL.M degree from the Department of Law, Yadanabon University. She is a Chin ethnic from Burma (Myanmar). After graduation, she continued her legal career as the Higher Grade Pleader in the District and Region. In 2013, she worked as a researcher focusing on land law, unlawful associations act, and formal peace processes in Burma (Myanmar). Throughout her career she accumulated extensive constitutional experiences and learned lessons from conflicts. She has a significant track record of supporting peacebuilding, ceasefire monitoring processes, and national integration initiatives of ethnic armed groups in Burma (Myanmar). Presently, Ami Acary is an S.J.D. Candidate, and her academic pursuits are closely aligned with her passion for promoting constitutional design, jurisprudence, legal history, international law, and fostering democratic values. She also served as a Co-coordinator of the Graduate Colloquium and a Chair of the Maurer Global Forum (2024-2026). She is an awardee of Myanmar Scholars and Leaders Program Scholarship (2023), awarded by Burmese American Community Institute, and Bunchana Atthakor Scholarship (2022-2023), awarded by OIS, Indiana University Bloomington.
Brittany Shelmon
Brittany Shelmon (JD/PhD fellow) received her BA in history from Mount Holyoke College, focusing on 20th century wars with a minor in philosophy. During her undergraduate career, she studied post-conflict societies in the former Yugoslavia. Her independent work while abroad centered on organizations that represent families of missing persons. She is pursuing a joint degree with the Russian and Eastern European Institute, where she will continue to learn lessons from the breakup of Yugoslavia.
